THE MEDIA BUSINESS: Advertising; Refinements In Corporate Sponsorship

By JULIA FLYNN SILER

Published: March 27, 1989

CHICAGO—
AS the sponsorship of traditional sporting events has grown more costly and crowded, companies like Reebok, K Mart and Chiquita Brands are turning to out-of-the-ordinary events to help polish their images and increase their sales.

Although golf tournaments, auto races and tennis matches remain the events of choice for many large corporate sponsors, the fastest-growing areas of sponsorship are cultural events, festivals and off-beat sports like biathlons, bobsledding and rowing, said Lesa Ukman, the publisher of Special Events Reports, a Chicago-based newsletter.

This was clearly demonstrated at the Sponsorship Next conference in Chicago last week, at which about 1,000 representatives of corporate sponsors, advertising agencies and event producers met to discuss sponsorship strategies and debate what direction the industry might take.

One direction - the sponsorship of philanthropic and cultural events -was described by C. Joseph LaBonte, president and chief operating officer of Reebok International Ltd. His company spent $10 million last year to underwrite Amnesty International's ''Human Rights Now!'' tour, which featured rock artists like Bruce Springsteen, Sting and Tracy Chapman.

Coinciding with a series of advertisements and promotions emphasizing individuality and freedom of expression, the Amnesty International tour helped link Reebok, an athletic footwear company, with an event that would be seen by millions of young concert-goers and viewers.

The Amnesty International tour ''reinforced the positive image the company already has in a way that was a little different,'' Mr. LaBonte said. ''It's hard to say that we'll ever sell a pair of shoes with it, but you can't always equate a dollar spent with a dollar earned. It fit with our values and will live on with the young people who have made our company successful.''

Although Reebok continues to sponsor sporting events like the United States Open tennis tournament and the Boston Marathon, the company is likely to sponsor other nontraditional events in the future, Mr. LeBonte said.

Similarly, Members Only, a company best known for its men's outerwear, decided last fall to spend $3 million on a program with the League of Women Voters urging people to vote. And Lloyds Bank P.L.C. spent $:650,000 ($1.1 million) last year to sponsor an exhibition of medieval art at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and a program to give secondary school students the chance to audition before representatives of the National Theater.

''Companies are going outside the traditional areas of golf, tennis and car racing for sponsorship because they're looking for less cluttered or less costly environments,'' Ms. Ukman said.

At the conference, Donald Breen Jr., director of marketing for Chiquita Brands, said one reason his company had chosen to back the United States Soccer Federation and other soccer-related activities and to end its fragmented sponsorship of tennis, running and cycling events was that competition to sponsor major events had become intense and expensive.

Some experienced sponsors, like the Pinkerton Tobacco Company, have also chosen to move beyond traditional events to those that are aimed more narrowly at potential consumers. In the past, Pinkerton, which sells chewing tobacco, has sponsored bass fishing competitions, tractor-pulling contests, professional wrestling matches and softball tournaments.

But with its broad experience in sponsorship, Pinkerton decided late last year to create an event from scratch - a country music concert series to visit some of the smaller, rural towns that have often been ignored by big-time music promoters.

''There are fewer sponsorship dollars being spent these days just because the C.E.O. happens to like golf,'' said John O. Dozier, vice president of marketing for World Sports Promotion, a unit of McCann Erickson U.S.A., the advertising agency. ''Sponsorship is becoming a more integral part of a company's marketing strategy.''

K Mart has sponsored the United States Gymnastics Federation, the United States Olympic Committee, the $1 million Greater Greensboro Open and various fishing tournaments over the years. But its most recent sponsorship venture involves a program of the United States Patent Model Foundation called ''Invent America!''

''We don't necessarily measure our success in terms of sales,'' said Michael G. Wellman, vice president of marketing for the nation's second-largest retailer. ''Sometimes, we measure it in terms of consumer awareness.''